Image used with permission by copyright holderM. Night Shyamalan’s multiple-personality thriller Split took home another win at the box office this week, narrowly beating supernatural horror sequel
Rings
for the top spot.
The three-week run for
Split
is particularly noteworthy because it’s only the second movie directed by Shyamalan to pull off such a feat. The last one of Shyamalan’s films to win the box office three weeks in a row was 1999’s critically acclaimed thriller
The Sixth Sense
— a film many consider to be the filmmaker’s best work.
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Coming in a close second was Rings, the third film in the supernatural horror series that began with Gore Verbinski’s 2002 film
The Ring
, an American remake of director Hideo Nakata’s wildly popular 1998 film. The sequel’s relatively underwhelming debut was matched by poor reviews, which generally doesn’t bode well for a productive run in theaters.
#
Title
Weekend
U.S. Total
Worldwide Total
1.
Split
$14.5M
$98.7M
$142.7M
2.
Rings
$13M
$13M
$28.2M
3.
A Dog’s Purpose
$10.8M
$32.9M
$42.5M
4.
Hidden Figures
$10.1M
$119.4M
$122.1M
5.
La La Land
$7.4M
$118.3M
$268.3M
6.
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter
$4.5M
$21.8M
$117.4M
7.
Sing
$4M
$262.9M
$487M
8.
Lion
$4M
$24.7M
$38.8M
9.
The Space Between Us
$3.8M
$3.8M
$3.8M
10.
xXx: Return of Xander Cage
$3.7M
$40M
$152.4M
The only other new release to find its way into the top ten was the teenage sci-fi romance
The Space Between Us
, which underperformed expectations rather fantastically, earning just $3.8 million in U.S. theaters. The movie — which follows a teenage boy raised on a different planet who comes to Earth to finally meet the girl he loves — crashed dramatically in its debut, and could be hard-pressed to cover its relatively meager $30 million budget.
As usual for this particular franchise,
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter
managed to do well enough internationally to make up for its shortcomings in U.S. theaters, and along with helping to put the Resident Evil franchise over the $1 billion mark worldwide, it also raked in $117.4 million worldwide so far. The Resident Evil franchise continues to find success in the formula it’s followed from the very start, even after six films and almost 15 years.
This upcoming week looks to be a busy one at theaters, with a wide variety of films with considerable buzz making their debuts.
On the family-friendly side, The LEGO Batman Movie offers up an animated, superhero-focused spinoff from 2014’s
The LEGO Movie
, while John Wick: Chapter 2 brings Keanu Reeves back as the titular hitman who can’t stay retired. Romantic thriller Fifty Shades Darkerserves up a sequel to
Fifty Shades of Grey
, and Fist Fight brings Charlie Day and Ice Cube together for a raunchy comedy about two teachers who get caught up in a schoolyard brawl.
25 years later, this enjoyably bad James Bond movie is still not enough
Barbara Broccoli, the longtime producer of the Bond franchise, recently revealed that the search for the next 007 is underway. Bond is one of those IPs that will never die, no matter how much time passes in between projects or how good or bad they might be. Indeed, the franchise is full of undeniably high peaks, like Goldfinger and Casino Royale, and embarrassingly low valleys, like Moonraker and Die Another Day. Most of Pierce Brosnan's tenure as 007 is somewhere in between, with his four-film stint as the spy with a license to kill offering an uneven blend of well-executed action and unadulterated and quite unintentional camp.
Of his four movies, the third, Michael Apted's The World Is Not Enough, is the hardest to pin down. On the one hand, it's absolutely awful, with a ridiculous story that embraces the worst aspects of the franchise and clumsy action sequences that have aged like milk. And yet, the film is so shamelessly entertaining and deliriously silly that it's hard not to fall under its spell. On its 25th anniversary, let's look back at the complicated legacy of The World Is Not Enough and discuss how this deliciously awful movie is still one of the most purely enjoyable James Bond outings.
Nowhere near enough
10 great free family and kids movies you should stream right now
If you're a parent, you're likely always on the hunt for movies that you can watch with the whole family. As any parent knows, though, content that is great for kids is not necessarily also great for adults. It can be annoying, repetitive, or cloying, and kids tend to want to watch the same things over and over again.
That's why we've curated a list of 10 family-friendly titles that will be great for both kids and their parents. These titles are available through services that are entirely free, so while they might come with some ads, they won't cost you anything to watch.
Is Gladiator streaming? How to watch the Oscar-winning epic before Gladiator II
The wait for Gladiator II is almost over, as Ridley Scott's epic sequel opens in theaters on Friday. Before the weekend, fans can relive the original saga that started in Gladiator, which isnow streaming on Paramount+ and Pluto TV.
Gladiator stars Russell Crowe as Maximus Decimus Meridius, a Roman general betrayed by the Emperor's son, Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) and sold into slavery. Commodus kills his father and orchestrates the murders of Maximus' wife and son. Hell-bent on vengeance, Maximus trains as a gladiator and becomes a legend in the arena, winning over the crowd as he plots his revenge against Commodus and the empire.
